On the Ninth Floor｜Public Procurement and Fair Competition: The Most Absurd Joke of the Moment

01

Recently, Pingdingshan, Henan, announced the investigation results of the “Lushan County spent 7.15 million yuan to build the Cowherd and Weaver Girl sculpture” incident, saying that according to the verification of a third-party engineering consulting company, the verified settlement cost of the sculpture was 2.07 million yuan.

Note that this 2.07 million yuan is the verified settlement cost, not the cost. Generally, third-party engineering consulting companies will give a certain and reasonable profit according to market conditions.

Regarding costs and pricing, Lao Xu is not very professional and only knows a little bit, but I think in this 2.07 million yuan, a profit of about 10% should be available.

Now in many industries, many businesses, a profit margin of 10% should be considered quite good, and it is already stronger than many listed companies.

02

It used to be said that “the bolder the person, the greater the yield of the land”. In the Lushan County sculpture incident, the relevant personnel were also bold enough to dare to collude with each other and operate a profit margin of more than 5 million yuan.

Less than 2 million yuan in cost, more than 5 million yuan in profit, a profit margin of over 200%! This is not only a huge profit, but also shocking and unimaginable.

Not only did the Cowherd and Weaver Girl, who are gods, dare not imagine it, but Lao Xu, who has been running around the country and has been in various industries for nearly twenty years, also dares not imagine what business and business can have such a high profit margin in this world?

Smuggling and drug trafficking probably don’t have that much either.

03

Lao Xu has recently started to get in touch with some procurement matters because of his work.

Lao Xu’s current small company’s daily business customers are also mainly local governments, state-owned enterprises, and central enterprises. In the words of the company’s boss, in the current economic environment, we should try to do business with the government, and they generally will not default on their debts. (Although, there are also many local governments and state-owned enterprises that default on their debts)

After Lao Xu has been busy for more than a year, he can’t help but say: The water here is too deep! It can be said that behind each procurement, from several hundred million to tens or hundreds of thousands, there is almost always collusion.

On the surface, it is online, open bidding and fair competition, but in fact, it is basically predetermined, and then go through the process again to legalize these behind-the-scenes operations.

It’s like having been flirting with a prostitute, making a private promise for life, hooking up and sleeping together (and even many have given birth to children, such as Lushan County this time, which was built first and then recruited), and still have to find a matchmaker (bidding agency), and then disguise themselves as a good woman who has never met, and then go through the ceremony of a formal marriage.

And this is just to shut everyone up. Even if the audit is followed up, the other party can also say righteously: Look, I am going through the open process and conducting open procurement.

04

Therefore, those so-called open bidding and fair competition hanging on the public resource trading platform are a ridiculous joke.

Sometimes, Lao Xu carries a thick bid document and travels far and wide to bid, and then finds that someone is openly rigging the bid.

Even if our quotation is only half of the other party’s, the other party can collude with the bidding party to kick you out for various reasons, such as deliberately lowering the technical score, saying that you are maliciously quoting a low price, invalidating the bid… and so on.

Not to mention, there are also many invitation bids, deliberately setting thresholds in terms of qualifications and performance. Some bids are released, and everyone knows that they are tailor-made for a certain intended enterprise.

Not only are there carrot recruitments, but also carrot bidding.

05

Sometimes, some bids are released, and they look good, but we will also first call the bidding agency or the purchasing owner to ask if they already have an intention.

Some of the bolder ones will vaguely or directly say that this bid has already been discussed. The implication is that we should not be unwelcome disruptors.

Some may be worried that the phone will be recorded and reported, and they will always say righteously that we welcome you, we are open bidding and fair competition.

Heh, in the end, Lao Xu was too naive. Where is fair competition? It is clearly a trap, and you have to pay a few hundred yuan more to buy the bid document.

06

Of course, I will not hide it. Lao Xu has also asked people to rig the bid, and has also helped other companies to accompany the bid. After communicating with colleagues, I found that this is already a tacit rule known to everyone on earth, especially when the owner is the government and state-owned enterprises, it can be said that there is no bid without rigging, and no bid without collusion.

After all, there are many monks and little porridge, so each company has to show its own skills and find its own way.

If the bidding party is more cautious, they will mostly tell you in advance not to do too much. The meaning is that you have to act more realistically, at least let them pass the audit and not be exposed.

As for those as bold as Lushan County, Henan, who can make the profit margin so high, such a big pie, Lao Xu has not eaten it yet.

07

There is a saying: If there is a profit of 300%, capital will dare to trample on all the laws of the world. Lao Xu silently took out the calculator and reversed the cost and procurement price of the Henan Lushan County’s sky-high sculpture, and found that it was not very far from 300%.

The sky-high sculpture in Lushan County, Henan, is just the tip of the iceberg. If the investigation goes on, Lao Xu dares to assert that more than half of the open procurement in the public resource transactions of local governments and state-owned enterprises, especially in the inland areas, at the county and city levels, cannot withstand scrutiny.

Sometimes, when the unspoken rules are universally regarded as a customary iron rule and are followed tacitly, it is a ridiculous joke.

It’s like, is the emperor’s new clothes beautiful, or is he naked and wearing nothing? However, even if he wears them, they are just a fig leaf after all.